Five Major Key Moments in the Assault on the Rights of Females in This Past Year.
In the previous year, women’s rights organisations were preparing for a return of Donald Trump to office. Hardly anyone anticipated. The flood and velocity of executive orders coming out of the White House were viewed as a calculated strategy to cause confusion and fear. In many ways it worked – there was chaos, resentment, and burnout as groups rushed to fill the gap left by a freeze on international development funds. But the situation was about to worsen.
The Trump administration has been the key driver, supported by fervent lobbying efforts by deeply conservative factions exploiting the situation to solidify transnational relationships with ideological partners.
This opposition to progressive rights refers to a global network of government figures, churches, and advocacy collectives as well as billionaire families and individuals that strive to weaken progress across a wide spectrum of issues. These include reproductive choice, queer and transgender freedoms, diverse family models, and honest sex ed.
They pursue this agenda via pressuring states, backing lawsuits, disparaging UN work to promote fairness, circulating falsehoods, and resourcing aligned NGOs.
We analyze five instances that impacted the safety, dignity and lives of females globally.
USAID Dismantled
In March, six weeks after a prominent humanitarian funder is halted, causing widespread distress, a senior US official confirms that over eighty percent of the organization's initiatives will be axed. US diplomats, ex-presidents and relief and public health authorities denounce the action, warning that fatalities will ensue. Human rights advocates say that the demise of the agency is not just a financial shortfall, it is a savage attack on human rights and access to contraception and reproductive health services. A multitude of agencies say women and girls will be disproportionately affected by reduced funding, especially in conflict areas. As the year ends, evidence indicates how a tremendous loss of life has already occurred from sickness, hunger, poor pregnancy healthcare, and abuse targeting females, with millions more to come. Additional key contributing countries proceed with parallel slashes. A director of a global justice organization says a move to cut foreign aid drastically is a gesture of alignment with another government's agenda.
Christian-Right Groups Raise Voices During UN Women Summit
In the same month, several faith-based advocacy networks meet in an luxury Manhattan venue for a two-day conference held alongside the international conference on women's rights. It is an forum to discuss methods on how to counter the UN's progressive policies. They are in buoyant mood as they welcome shifts in US policy on gender, diversity and abortion. Meanwhile, the world's top diplomat opens the women’s summit with a stark warning that “the toxin of gendered hierarchy” is returning, after a study indicates that groups opposing progressive rights are deliberately weakening established norms on core aspects of gender equality around the world.
Conferences on Traditional Values in Africa
Over the summer, a cluster of meetings in Africa focused on the traditional family and national sovereignty sparks alarm among rights advocates. In early May, a national leader and spouse open a significant conference to resist what they label criminal foreign forces eroding traditional family values. A soon after, another regional summit on family values is held. Both events are participated in by leading American and European conservative activists, including heads of influential networks. One speaker calls on African NGOs to resist “worldwide progressive social restructuring” of global institutions. In the following month, a global faith group hosts a family strengthening conference in an African nation, an event that health activists say has become a stage for criticizing gender equality. Activists observe that the extent of foreign involvement has grown significantly.
American Plan to Burn Birth Control
As medical centers in numerous African countries report they are depleting their stocks of family planning supplies, including post-rape care packages, the US announces in midsummer plans to dispose of a vast stockpile of birth control held in a warehouse in Europe. A global sexual health network states that their incineration will prevent countless females from contraceptive supplies, and lead to hundreds of thousands of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The organization labels the plan an dogmatic choice “about exporting a regressive policy worldwide” and “a deliberate form of reproductive oppression”. A prominent medical humanitarian organization calls it “callous and reckless”. NGOs offer to buy the contraceptives so they can reach their intended destinations, but the US refuses all offers. The situation remains in deadlock as host nation officials are blocking the destruction of viable medicines.
Widening of the Anti-Abortion Policy
Bringing back the anti-abortion funding ban, which halts US aid to groups that offer, promote, or give information about abortion services overseas, is standard practice for certain US administrations. It came as no surprise when the policy was restored in January. The administration also rejoined an international anti-abortion agreement. But in October, the US announces it intends to extend the restrictions to include sovereign states and UN agencies in addition to NGOs, and to cover diversity programmes. Further specifics about the broader enforcement are anticipated next year. A leader in global maternal health says extending the reach will have “unimaginable effects”. Advocates for bodily autonomy fear that new US aid packages being discussed with African nations will become contingent upon adopting the broadened restrictions.
